SHAMBHALA SUN SEPTEMBER 2013 59
Miya Ando Steel Horizons
MIYA ANDO IS WEARING head-to-toe black, except for the
pearly Buddhist prayer beads around her wrist. But greeting me
at the door of her Brooklyn studio, what she wants to show me is
pure, vibrant color: the robes she inherited from her grandfather.
Ando’s grandfather was the head priest of a small Buddhist
temple in Okayama, Japan, where she spent half her childhood.
She remembers clearly the sound of chanting through the paper-
thin walls and seeing her grandfather dressed in these robes,
which she is now carefully unwrapping. They’re made of almost
luminescent purple and orange damask and still smell faintly of
temple incense.
Purple is an unusual color for Nichiren Buddhist robes, Ando
tells me, because it’s reserved for those who have been priests for
fifty years or more. It is this purple and the contrasting orange
that’s got her thinking about the impact of color and how she can
incorporate it into her art.
Miya Ando displaying her grandfather’s Buddhist robes.
PHOTOSBYRIGHT:LIZAMATTHEWS,ABOVE:LAURENWARD